Rise in cases of children poisoned against one parent by the other

Since their divorce, seven years previously, Miriam’s former husband had waged a campaign of parental alienation against her, using almost all the 17 specific strategies identified through research studies with adults who were alienated as children and with targeted parents.

These include a parent constantly badmouthing and belittling the other parent to the point that the child sees no value in the targeted parent at all, limiting contact with the targeted parent, forbidding discussion and pictures of them, creating the impression that the targeted parent does not love the child or is dangerous, forcing the child to reject the other parent, and asking the child to spy and keep secrets from them.

Judges in Britain are also increasingly recognising the phenomenon. In one case, the judge wrote about a case where she was forced to transfer residence to re-establish a relationship between a child and an alienated parent. “I regard parental manipulation of children, of which I distressingly see an enormous amount, as exceptionally harmful,” she wrote in her summary.